Mud & Mischief

I don’t remember being this bad tempered during my last pregnancy. Every little thing threatens to set me off and I have a hell of a time holding it all in.

School mornings I am the Mother From Hell. Dinner times I am the Shrieking Harridan. And in between, I am not much better than a Grouchy, Irritable, Miserable, Bad Tempered Cow.

Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m in pain. But that’s no excuse for being horrid to my children. Yesterday the physio gave me a bollocking for using a walking stick and issued me with a pair of bloody elbow crutches. Gee, I’m going to feel a right muppet using them for the next seven weeks or so. However, they do help hugely, as they keep me upright and central and it is easier to walk using them. It is not, however, easier to accomplish anything around the house.

I got up late today and had a shower, pottered around the bedroom sorting out clothes and laundry and decided that as I wasn’t a pathetic cripple upon wakening, that today I could do a ton of stuff. I lasted two hours, tops. Did the kitchen, put some laundry in, folded some drying and basically, that’s about as far as I’m going to get today.

Gave Myf a right earful too, reduced her to tears, which made me feel real big. *sigh* Anyone know of a way to get a seven year old to actually pay attention and do what she’s asked? I can’t take that many more toys off her as most of them are in the loft already. I ban tv so they go and trash their room/s. It’s not like they can trash the playroom - it’s a bomb site as the carpet chap is coming on Tuesday to finally lay the carpet… which should have been done in the middle of October.

I need to figure out some way of getting the stuff out of that room and distributed around the house so it can be finished. Once the carpet is down, the shelves that have been stood up the hallway in their flat-pack boxes for the past four months can be put together and the toys can finally be sorted out into their relevant gaps (is one of these kinds of shelves, and we got five of those drawer/boxes too). I figured 25 little slots ought to give us plenty of scope for books and toys, and then the rest can go to the charity shop!

I suppose it didn’t help that yesterday was manic - my timetable looked something like this:
7.30 - up & shower
8.35 - out of house, drop Tea and Myf at school, Piglet at preschool
9.15 - head into Doncaster, stop off at Lidl for some essentials, grab McD’s hash browns for breakfast as I forgot to eat, fill up truck with gas
10.40 - call in at home on way back to pick up Piglet’s forgotten lunch, the carpet sample and the preschool fees
11.00 - preschool, so I can have my tummy patted by 28 curious small people who have been doing ‘babies’ as a topic this week. They had a ten day old baby come to visit on Tuesday. Was actually fun and quite sweet to see some of their reactions. Piglet got quite possessive over ‘her’ baby bump!
11.30 - carpet place, to change the order to a different carpet - James had chosen in haste and when we got the sample home, we realised it looked even cheaper than it actually was. So I doubled our price limit and we’ll now have a much nicer one in the playroom. Arrange delivery for between 4 and 6.
12.15 - hairdressers. Yes, you read that right, I actually went and had my hair cut and if I remember to get James to take a pic, I’ll prove it. Is half the length it was, and layered… feels very odd to be able to wear it down, but I think I like it. It dried a damn sight quicker this morning!
1.00 - collect Piglet. Actually, I was late at the hairdressers, so texted a friend to collect her for me, so she was dropped off at the salon for me. Was gone quarter past when I finally escaped, loaded her into the truck and headed back into town.
1.35 - get to shop in town. Grab James, when he finally returned from his wanderings, and got him to drive me to DRI.
1.55 - physio appt. Piglet and Daddy went off to do whatever it is that they do whilst they wait for me. Got poked and prodded and tutted at, and a lot of sympathy for the varicose veins, which was nice as no other medical type person has even bothered looking at them so far. And got the elbow crutches. *sigh*
2.40 - dropped James back off at shop and high tailed it to school for the pick up.
3.35 - got home and collapsed in a heap on my chair, told offspring to bugger off and give me half an hour’s peace and quiet. I got about 12 minutes…
5.00 - fed small children
5.45 - went and got ready to go out.
6.20 - James came home, and got into shower
6.30 - carpet bloke arrives to drop off two massive rolls of carpet - had to retrieve James from shower to assit, baby sitter arrives
7.15 - finally get out, half an hour late, collect friends and head an hour up the road to Selby for a 50th birthday dinner.
12.30 - get home, absolutely stuffed to the gills and fall into bed at 1am
4.00 - Piglet decides she needs the loo and comes in to tell me all about it, instead of just going
6.15 - James’ alarm goes off

Sometimes I wonder how other mothers actually find the time to work.